It's comic book movie season, which means our Build of the Week has already featured a couple superhero-themed PCs. But we hunger for more. More PCs that show off Team Cap or Team Iron Man loyalty. More PCs that aren't afraid to be garish as they celebrate their favorite heroes. More PCs that are being eaten by a giant head. In short: case mods that are utterly impractical, but cool enough that it doesn't matter.
Case modding is tough work and can take weeks or months of effort, but at the end of the day if your rig looks like the Batmobile or Thor's Hammer, wasn't it worth the effort?
Captain America
Civil War is out in theaters now (or soon, in the US!), so where better to start? As long as you’re Team Cap, anyway.
Vic McGuire, aka XcaliburFX, gave a PC the Captain America treatment a couple of years ago. It even has Cap standing atop the case, along with motorbike. Just don’t mention the bike is actually from a 35th Anniversary G.I. Joe model.
Specs: Not supplied.
Iron Man's Helmet
Franco “Warboy” Martinelli (via Modders Inc.) used an old ATX case as the base for his Iron Man helmet case mod. Not only does the helmet look impressively accurate, it also opens up to reveal components inside.
Specs: Not supplied.
Batmobile Tumbler
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this isn’t the only Batmobile on the list. This one from modder batfan06 is based on the Tumbler from Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy. The actual PC itself is fairly ancient these days, but with its added armor plating and LEDs it looks like it could stand up to anything.
Specs: AMD Sempron 2800+, 736 MB of RAM, a 40 GB hard drive, and it uses on-board video.
Batman Utility Belt
Bruce Webb is another modder with a penchant for the Dark Knight. This PC “case” has all of the components precariously positioned and connected using yellow wires. It’s even liquid cooled, somehow. Again, it’s a pretty old rig these days, but unlike the Batmobile, this one doesn’t look particularly sturdy.
Specs: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 2.2 GHz, 2GB DDR2 RAM, Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS, Western Digital Caviar 500GB HDD, Corsair HX520W PSU.
The Venom
The Venom is a case mod by JengKi which incorporates everyone’s favorite Spider-man villain. It looks like a lot of moulding was done with a lot of wire mesh to create an impressive, and freaky, looking mod. The PC itself is way more modern than the previous ones on the list too.
Specs: Intel Core i5-6600K, MSI GTX 960, 8GB DDR4 RAM.
Thor's Hammer
Suchao Prowphong took his love of Thor to the next level by creating a PC case mod based on the mighty hammer Mjölnir for Thermaltake’s 2015 modding competition. It’s got a whole bunch of LEDs, with a wide range of colors available.
Specs: This is a mini-ITX build, and sadly no room for a dedicated GPU.
Batman v Superman Batmobile
Here’s the other Batmobile on the list, based on the more recent design from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. This comes from the folks at Babetech, and it was so good it featured as one of PC Gamer’s Builds of the Week recently too.
Specs: MSI Z170A Pro Carbon motherboard, Intel i5-6600K, MSI GTX 960, 16GB DDR4 RAM
Incredible Hulk
This crazy looking Hulk PC mod is from Derrick Johnson and was displayed at Quakecon 2012. Sean Hinz from Screw Attack snapped some pictures, but it looks like the page isn’t available anymore. Rather than being contained within a case, some of the components actually stick out of the glowing green goo at all angles.
Specs: Not supplied.
Iron Man
Ron Christianson made this Iron Man case mod for Thermaltake just before Avengers Assemble came out in 2012. It’s a mod of the Armor Revo case, and it comes complete with custom built arc reactor. It remains unclear if the arc reactor actually powers the PC (it does not).
Specs: Not supplied.
Hellbat
Back to The Bat now, and the final three case mods were all part of MSI’s Batman v Superman case modding competition which ran last month. The components of this PC mod by RandomDesign are housed within a giant mould of Batman’s helmet, which has glowing blue eyes for good measure.
You can see more of the Hellbat in our featured Build of the Week.
Specs: MSI Z170 Pro Carbon, Intel i5 6600K, MSI GTX 960, 16GB HyperX Savage DDR4 RAM, HyperX Savage 120GB SSD, CoolerMaster M2 1500W
Man of Krypton
On the other side of the fence we have Superman, and a mod showing his logo resting on top of a bed of kryptonite. This is from modder JengKi, who you may remember from the Venom mod earlier on. Not only has the case been modded, the components have been too to make them more… kryptonite-y.
Specs: MSI Z170A Gaming M5, Intel i5 6600K, MSI GTX 960, 16GB Kingston Savage DDR4 RAM, HyperX Savage 120GB SSD.
To wrap things up we have another Superman logo, although this one is quite literally wrapped in a cape. It’s from BaluC and Soccer from Black-mod.com, and is a more traditional version of the logo that isn’t in close proximity to the Man of Steel’s greatest weakness. Its base has a cool fist-print with the ground cracked around it.
You can see more of this case from our featured Build of the Week.
Specs: MSI Z170A Gaming M5, Intel i5 6600K, MSI GTX 960, 16GB Kingston Savage DDR4 RAM, HyperX Savage 120GB SSD.
